


Klaus, 15

by TelWoman



Category: Eroica Yori Ai o Komete | From Eroica with Love
Genre: Parent-Child Relationship, Teenage memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:02:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24193270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TelWoman/pseuds/TelWoman
Summary: Snippets from Klaus's teen years ... and later.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10
Collections: From Eroica With Love - Groups Challenges





	Klaus, 15

**Author's Note:**

> These are out-takes from a longer (unfinished) story. It hasn't been beta-read, so it might be a bit clunky. I might add to it, and give it a bit more polish later - but for now: Happy Birthday, Klaus. We're watching you.

  
  
His father had been a hard taskmaster when he was growing up. As an adult, Klaus had driven himself even harder, and had higher expectations of himself than the old man ever had. He’d learned early that attaining the goals he set for himself meant discipline and self-denial. While his classmates at University or his fellow-recruits in the military had cut loose at the weekends, he kept himself under strict control at all times. No distractions. Few friendships. No involvements that could draw unfavourable attention. Or that was his goal.

Between his father and the religious training at school, Klaus developed an ability to split himself into two people. The self he showed to the world was the disciplined, determined, hard-working one. The guarded, private self learned to be furtive, determined to hide things – from his father, his teachers, and even, if he could, from his other worthier self.

  


_“What is the meaning of this, Klaus?” His father stood in the doorway of his bedroom, holding up a magazine. “Frau Ensinger found this behind your wardrobe when she was cleaning your room. You will explain yourself, Klaus.”_

_Blushing, awkward, ashamed, fifteen-year-old Klaus had acknowledged ownership of the magazine._

_“Nude women, Klaus? This is not what a healthy young man should be looking at. You should respect yourself more. You should respect women more.”_

_Stammering out an apology and a promise never to bring such a shameful thing into the house again, Klaus had silently thanked whatever Fates watched over him that Frau Ensinger had not found the other ones. Particularly, the ones with naked men in them._

  


History was Klaus’s favourite subject at school, and it was perhaps in his study of history that his analytical abilities had first shown themselves. He’d been particularly interested in the empires of the ancient world – the Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans. He devoured books on ancient kings and generals, their battles and their military strategy. He read everything the school library had to offer on ancient architecture and engineering.

His reading also introduced him to the art of the ancient world, and he took an interest in this form of human accomplishment, too. His textbooks and the volumes he borrowed from libraries were liberally illustrated with images of ancient paintings and carvings. The teenage Klaus had been fascinated by the evolution of sculpture in particular, from early crude representations to later lifelike figures that celebrated human and animal forms at their finest. 

He’d loved the austere beauty of Greek and Roman statues, particularly the male figures. Women didn’t feature largely in Klaus’s life; the women he’d had most to do with as a boy were nuns. The female figures in his books were passed over with a shrug, but he spent hours poring over the muscular images of athletes and warriors and gods. 

The ancient artists fired his imagination with their depiction of male perfection. He compared his own lanky, fast-growing physique to images of Perseus and Herakles and Poseidon, longing to have the kind of muscular beauty he saw. In the end, though, he’d suppressed his own interest in Greco-Roman sculpture after a particularly lovely marble Dionysus found his way into Klaus’s masturbation fantasies. Horrified, Klaus began to avoid books about ‘indecent’ ancient art.

  


_Another memory surfaced. Rome, 1980. A Roman-style bath in a hotel. Klaus remembered storming in to get Eroica moving. They needed to get to work, and the damned thief was holding things up, wasting time in the bath. He’d stomped in, shouting, expecting the ridiculous pansy to take fright and snap to it. Instead, cool as a cucumber, Eroica had stood up in the hip-deep water, facing him, and stared him down: a young god rising from the waters, as beautiful as any statue the ancient world had produced. Klaus’s mouth had gone dry. He’d become incoherent. Enraged. Disconcerted. He’d had to go and stand in the doorway with his back to Eroica, willing his unwelcome erection to subside, while Eroica towelled himself dry and got dressed._  
  
  



End file.
